GeekGirlCon Blog

Live Blog: Making Science Fun … With NASA

Hey, everyone. Susie Rantz here; I’ll be live-blogging at the Making Science Fun … with NASA panel. Here’s the description for this one:

Making Science Fun (with NASA)! – RM204
The Solar Dynamics Observatory’s Education and Public Outreach at NASA wants kids to be more engaged in science. This group of experienced NASA staff will give you tips from their educational programs to improve interest and science literacy in children of all backgrounds. And you will have the opportunity to ask them about what might work in your school or community.Presented by Martha Wawro, Wendy Van Norden, Dawn Myers, Holly Csiga, Alice Enevoldsen

As a space geek, I’m really excited about this one. Lots of kids here. So awesome. Be sure to check out NASA at the GeekGirlConnections Room (101).

Holly Csiga, runs live performances at the Pacific Science Center, introducing herself: Born and raised in Alaska.

My favorite quote from her intro: “Science — when informally mixed with arts — can take you anywhere.”

Alice Enevoldsen, planetarium supervisor at the Pacific Science Center (who else loves the Science Center?). Alice started working at the planetarium in high school – wow!

My favorite quote from the intro: “Scientists are multi-faceted; they don’t just sit in a lab doing science all the time. Science is everywhere.”

Dawn Myers: Works at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Does outreach to children about science and also helps run Solar Observing satellite. Cool!

Martha Wawro is the education and outreach lead with NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Martha has been to Seattle three times in the last year for work; she also went to India to work at a space festival, and Alaska in June. Who wants her job?! 🙂

Think Like a Scientist (tips for parents)
Encourage your kids to take notes. Any event that has multiple potential outcomes are great learning opportunities for your kids. Give kids the opportunity to think through a problem in multiple ways.

Activities
Now we are doing an activity that makes us think like a scientist. We are first being asked to OBSERVE what’s on the screen, not INFER. We are looking at footprints at the moment. Now we are being asked to INFER what happened to the footprints based on the observations. The point of this activity – we all came up with dozens of different scenarios. We don’t know for sure which scenario was right. The next step would be to do more research. The thought process with your kids is the most important process.

NASA just introduced Camilla, their rubber chicken mascot, who HAS been to space.

In Q&A – someone asks how we can get people more excited about math. The answer? We need to keep separating math from everyone else, including science. We need to incorporate it into everyday life. There’s even a Space Math @ NASA website!

We are now talking about how to incorporate math and science into princess talk. Those cone-hats that princesses wear? That’s geometry. Making a princess dress requires measurement. We can measure the circumference of a tiara! Also, along with your bedtime stories, you can do bedtime math with your kids! Check out their website: http://bedtimemathproblem.org.

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